Reaching out

In response to The Daily Post : Branch

During winter, when most trees are without leaves, you can see how many branches a single tree has. It surprises me every time. When spring comes, everything will again be covered in various shades of green. The whole tree is hidden beneath it, until you come close, you can only guess what the structure of the tree really is like.

The branches form the appearance of a tree. They can be long or short, some are sturdy, some are delicate. But they belong to the same tree.
Branches point away from the tree. They reach out into the world.

I think humans are a lot like trees. We too have a trunk, our body. From our body, we reach out into the world in many ways, like the branches. Our branches are thoughts and feelings. Often they are hidden behind our appearance and looks, like branches in the summer.

But sometimes, we can’t hold up our appearances, when bad things happen, when we are hurt or sad. And we lose our mask and shudder in the cold. But we are still beautiful, just in another way. And then, suddenly, there are buds on our naked branches, they slowly give way to leaves and we are back to normal again. Be patient, winter will pass. It always does.

There are times, where a branch is met with resistance, a wall, or another tree, and can’t continue to grow in an certain direction. This is when we are confronted with the fact, that not everything we long for comes true. But we have so many other branches that help us to explore the world.

We can learn so much from trees. They may stop becoming taller, but the trunk continues to get broader, and new branches keep developing from the trunk. When you can’t reach your original goal, find other possibilities to grow. And who knows, maybe the fence that prevented you from growing is gone tomorrow, and you can grow in the direction you wanted at a later point in life.

Be like a tree: Continue to grow, and don’t stop making new branches that reach out into the world!